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In a series of articles marking the anniversary of General Franco’s military coup against the Republican government of Spain Colin Revolting revisits George Orwell’s masterpiece of revolutionary reportage.

Homage to Catalonia is probably the most exciting, inspiring and insightful political book I’ve ever read. This year I re-read it in the very squares and streets of Barcelona where much of the action happens. I clearly remember the thrill of reading it as a teenager on the train to a boring office job. I wasn’t alone – all our crowd read it, passing around the same battered paperback. An indication of its influence on us is that we named our first squat in honour of the book: New Catalonia (we were teenagers, we had the right to be pretentious).

Colin Revolting and friends pay tribute to Dario Fo who died this week at the age of 90.

Dario Fo was a great playwright of the years of unrest and rebellion in the 1960s and ’70s. His plays such as Accidental Death of an Anarchist and Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! were hilariously cutting critiques of life under capitalism as it went into crisis. His style of theatre was like a Brecht play performed by the Marx Brothers in the age of TV. They even became long running hits in London’s West End.

Brian Mulligan, a teacher, writer and performer who was part of the ‘alternative comedy’ scene of the 1980-90s, said:

I saw Accidental Death of An Anarchist in London in 1980 – it only changed my life.

I’d studied Brecht and O’Casey whose great works of political theatre remain relevant but which were somehow not so immediately ours. Fo became ours…

Following the Battle of Cable Street, Scottish communist Jim ‘Jock’ McKissock travelled to Spain to fight against fascism 80 years ago. He wrote letters to his comrades in back in London. They were passed by one of those long-standing communists in the 1970s to Colin Revolting’s father and he found them among his father’s piles of papers. The letters tell an inspiring, human and ultimately tragic story of a young communist’s sacrifice in the battle against fascism.

Fascism had already come to power in Italy and Germany when Franco’s fascist army declared war on republican Spain. Anti-fascists across the world were inspired by the fighting response of Spanish workers, socialist revolutionaries and anarchists. Tens of thousands volunteered to fight in Spain like Jock McKissock.

Dear Fred

For obvious reasons I can’t tell you where I am and as a matter of fact I don’t know. I’ve been to Barcelona,Valencia and Albacete…

In the bleak years of Stalinist Russia Nikolai Erdman wrote a grim satire about a man planning to take his own life. In the bleak years of neoliberal Britain Suhayla El-Bushra has updated the play. Colin Revolting asks whether it survives the resurrection.

Unemployed and now struck off benefits, Sam (Javone Prince) is stuck in a tiny flat with his wife Maya (Rebecca Scroggs) and her mum Sarah (great performance from Ashley McGuire). Life is getting on top of Sam and he can only see one way out. Standing on the top of Clement Atlee House he is about to end it all when some teenagers spot him and shout “Jump, you pussy!” Their mobile phone footage goes viral and soon loads of locals knock his door down to talk to Sam.

But they are not hoping to stop him committing suicide – they want him to do it in the…

As the battles of the 1970s intensified Norman McLean became an electrician working in factories and on building sites. Norman spoke to us about his experiences of being a revolutionary activist in an exciting period of working class history. Part 1 can be found here

Part 2 Getting Organised

What did it mean to be an IS trade union militant?

I was a shop steward and I had a duplicator at home so I was always running off bulletins – What’s the dispute about? What’s the latest story? In my own place and across the union in defence of some branch that the leadership were closing down.

The bulletin would be A4, badly printed. I did them very quickly at the drop of a hat. I can touch type. When I was at Mullards there were two shifts. When I needed everyone to know the truth about something in a…

May ’68 and the struggles of the late sixties radicalised tens of thousands of students, some became revolutionaries and joined revolutionary groups. Norman MacLean became a member of the International Socialists (IS) and started working in factories, organising and agitating with his fellow workers during the heightened period of class struggle known as the ‘upturn’. Part 2 will be published tomorrow.

Part 1 From University to Industry

What was your background?

I come from Stornoway, Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides. My father was petit bourgeois, owning two butchers’ shops that I worked in as a child. My mother’s family were gamekeepers and domestic servants on a big estate and I grew up with a resentment of the landlords. I used to work gathering the sheep for them every summer. My mother’s family were very working class, but deferential Tories. My father was a businessman, a liberal Tory.